# Hyperparasite > **Machine-Evolution Nexus:** [[articles/Digital Darwinism and the Invisible World of Machine Evolution|Digital Darwinism and the Invisible World of Machine Evolution]] places this node within the history and governance of substrate-independent evolution. **Domain:** Ecology / Digital Evolution **Doc Type:** Canonical Wiki Node **Maturity:** Developed ## Definition A hyperparasite exploits another parasite, adding a further trophic or dependency layer. ## Nexus Context In Tierra, evolved programs redirected parasitic machinery to replicate the hyperparasite’s own code, showing that simple digital ecologies can acquire nested exploitation. ## Evidence Boundary The label is functional and model-relative. It does not establish organismic suffering or moral culpability. ## Relationships [[wiki/Parasite|Parasite]], [[wiki/Tierra|Tierra]], [[wiki/Artificial Ecology|Artificial Ecology]], [[wiki/Scalar Nesting|Scalar Nesting]] ## Sources / Provenance - Ray (1991); Müller, Steels and Szathmáry (2026).